The Hook Chronicles
by Varia Lectio
Summary: Captain Hook lives. And the secret of his true identity--and his plans for the future-- are to be realized... Now Finished!
1. Chapter One: In The Belly Of The Beast

The Hook Chronicles

Chapter One: In The Belly Of The Beast.

By Varia Lectio

Author's Notes: Since Neverland is practically portrayed as an alternate universe in the latest Peter Pan movie, I decided to have the Neverland planet revolve around it's sun a little differently than our own planet. Oh, and I don't own Peter Pan, Smee, Princess Tigerlily, or Captain Hook, and they're not my creations.

                                                             *~*~*~*~*~*~*

"...done for."

And with those pathetic last words, he fell feet-first, down into the mouth of the crocodile.

The beast swallowed him whole, with barely even a triumphal snap of it's jaws.

                                                          *~*~*~*~*~*~*

The crocodile's throat was blocked by it's choice morsel. It coughed and reared up out of the water, tossing it's head, trying desperately to swallow.

Hook, meanwhile, had not fully surrendered himself to his fate. Lodged in the monster's esophagus, his instinctive sense of self-preservation flared up once more. Hatred and rage fueled him as he kicked against the slimy, pressing walls of flesh, but even he knew that he did not have much longer to live. The strangling crocodile's gagging movements were in turn suffocating him, and it was a close thing as to which of the two combatants, man or reptile, would expire first.

Then Hook slammed his right arm into the beast's tender flesh. The steel hook dug deep, and he ripped and tore with all the strength that he had still in him.

The crocodile's reddish-amber eyes opened wide. It lunged up out of the sea, opened wide it's mouth, and with a great and painful heave, it vomited up the relentless little creature it had stalked so patiently.

Covered in blood and mucus, Hook flopped out of the crocodile's mouth, and slammed into a fortuitously placed rock that jutted up out of the sea as a stark black spike. Gasping for air, he clawed at the stone with both his fingernails and the sharp twin points of his hooks, and crawled up and onward until he had reached the zenith of the rock's spire.

There, exhausted, he looked out to the west, and saw, faintly, the rays of the rising sun. 

                                                                *~*~*~*

                                                 To be Continued...


	2. Chapter Two: Despair, Despondency, And T

The Hook Chronicles

Chapter Two: Despair, Despondency, And The Three-Fold Poison

                   *~*~*~*~*~*~*

It was snowing again.

Hook awoke--he had been dozing in the sunlight, curled up on the rock. It was the cold that brought him to lucidity, and he shivered in his heavy frozen coat of red velvet and golden brocade.

The sunlight which had lulled him into sleep was dim now, and gave no warmth to the land and sea. Iron-grey clouds swirled across the sky, and thick white snowflakes flew down from them. The sea was now ice; pearly-white plumes of frozen sea-foam surrounded the little rock upon which Hook lay.

Hook sat up, and looked about himself. He assessed the little rock upon which he sat, and in his bitter mind he named it "Despair". There was another little rock close to his Despair, and he named it "Despondency". Despair and Despondency were alike in all respects: they were both as cold and black as tarnished iron, and both were sharp and spiked, and quite uncomfortable to sit upon.

Shivering, he brushed snow off of his coat, and looked again about himself. He almost expected to see his ship, the _Jolly Roger, _mired in the ice somewhere, but never did he see the black and foreboding silhouette of his good vessel.

He was alone and abandoned. Unloved, and unlovable. The thought saddened him deeply, but his coldly impassive face hid his true feelings well.

He sat on the rock and pulled from his coat pocket a small vial filled with red liquid. He set the little vial onto the pure white snow on the rock, and gazed at it with morbid fascination; the vial's red contents shone in what dim light there was, and it sparkled like a poisonous ruby.

"The Serpent's venom, " he whispered to himself, stroking the vial's sides with a fingertip. He considered drinking the stuff; after all, slaying himself with the poison of his own bitter tears had a certain freakish irony.

On a wild impulse, he uncorked the little vial, and drained it's contents in one quick gulp.

He then sat back, and waited for his poisons to take effect. Even though he had made the foolishly sentimental mistake of fighting the crocodile, he now had remedied it. Soon he would expire, and the snow would pile around him as his grave.

He waited, and waited, and then waited some more, but nothing happened. He still felt every bit as bitter, as angry, and as venomously hateful as before. He was not expiring at all, not one bit!

Hook stared at the vial in horrified realization: his own distilled feelings of Malice, Jealousy, and Disappointment could not kill him. He had lived with them burning inside him for so long that for all intents and purposes, he was completely immune.

He gave one horrid cry of ruined hope, and threw the vial away from himself as hard as he could. It shattered on the ice with a silvery little tinkle, and the few drops of poison that still clung to the insides of the glass flew onto the ice and burned a smoking hole through it like acid.

Hook spat with disgust, and leapt off the rock called Despair. He landed on the ice with all the lithe grace and balance of a cat, and stalked away across the frozen sea. Since his attempt at killing himself had failed so miserably, it seemed that he was fated to live, so live he would.

He walked across the ocean, and at last reached the land. Like the sea, the jungle forest itself was frozen stiff, and the lack of the usual heat and humidity made Hook, who was after all dressed from neck to foot in heavy velvet and silk, feel as grateful as a man of his sour disposition could. Excessive heat bothered him; it reminded him too deeply of the burning fever he had contracted after the amputation of his right hand.

His emotions regarding his present situation were stuck and stranded in a strange realm of contradictions. On the one hand, he was almost glad that that sniveling boy Pan could not be around to harass him, for the land froze in a long winter whenever Pan left the realm of Neverland. On the other hand--he thrust out his wicked double hook with a growl of rage-- the long winter meant that Pan was not around for Hook to find and conveniently gut, for he sincerely doubted that the foolish child was dead.

His thin lips twisted into a terrible snarl of consummate hate, revealing his stained and crooked teeth. He stood alone in the frozen forest, imagining himself to be like a great old lion, his long dark hair curling out in a bedraggled yet still magnificent mane, his clothes--no, fur blazing in red and gold, clutching his old wounded stump to his chest.

His ice-pale blue eyes suddenly flared red, and he thrust his hook away from his body and raised it up with a angry roar. This lion had one claw left, and dulled as it was by combat, he could still kill with it.

At the sound of his challenging roar, a clump of bushes shivered some distance away to his left. With a gleeful snarl, Hook strode over to it in powerful long strides. Killing something would surely sooth his savage temper.

He reached down and pulled the thing in the bushes out of its hiding place. Raising his claw with a terrible smile, he stared down at his prey with his horrid crimson gaze. No one who saw the murderous red eyes of Hook lived for very long after that singular vision.

The thing that he had grasped with his left hand squeaked with fright, and gazed up  with petrified blue eyes. Blue eyes that gazed at Hook from behind a pair of broken spectacles...

"Don't 'urt me, Capt'n," Smee babbled desperately, "I didn't mean to jump ship, 'twas forced off the plank, I was! 'Member how I fixed you all those nice hot cups o' tea when you was--" he spared a terrified glance for the hooks poised now over his head like a Sword of Damocles-- "**_ill._**"

That last word was spoken with a gulp of added fear, as both Smee and Hook knew the cause of that illness very well.

Hook carefully, slowly lowered his weapon. "Smee," he said in astonishment.

                                                           *~*~*~*~*~* 

                         To Be Continued...


	3. Chapter Three: Hook And Smee

The Hook Chronicles

Chapter Three: Hook and Smee

                                                       *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"Smee," Hook said again, quite redundantly this time.

He loosed his old servant, and the little man stepped back, gazing at Hook fearfully.

"Aye, sir, 'tis Smee, " he said softly. "What can old Smee do for ye, Capt'n?" 

As soon as Smee asked the question, he inwardly regretted it, for his master had just shown evidence of being in a most frightful fit of rage, and, though that temper seemed to be once again under control, Smee did not want his foolish tongue to put him back on the receiving end of said temper. 

Hook merely sighed at the other man's words; angry as he was, he would not kill Smee, for without his ship and crew, he would surely need some help if he were to survive. 

But then the mere notion of being dependent upon the aid of another put him back again into his foul mood, and so he then snarled an inarticulate, surly reply that silenced Smee quite effectively.

Hook trudged away through the forest, hacking now and then at loose dangling branches and vines which obstructed his path, and Smee followed at a safe distance. Smee knew that Hook had a plan, though he did not know what that plan was. When Hook wanted to tell Smee what that plan was, he would do so. Until then, Smee held his peace, and followed his Captain like a loyal dog that loves and obeys even a cruel and sour-tempered master.

Hook and Smee came at last to a little clearing in the great forest. The trees loomed over the two men as if they were the lost children, and the trees were their guardians; tall adults who knew more secrets than silly children could even hope to discover. All was silent in the clearing.

At last, Hook said, looking about the clearing with a hard glare in his bright blue eyes, "Smee, go find some firewood, and find something to eat for us. And be quick about it, man!"

With this curt dismissal, Smee bounded off to his assigned task, and Hook was left alone in the clearing.

Hook shuddered. He had been here several days before. Then, the little spot had been alive with magic and joy, and the glow of the faerie folk, as they danced about the waltzing couple of Wendy and Peter Pan. Now the glade was as cold and dead as Hook's own withered conscience.

Hook had crept through the forest that night, as silent as a panther on the prowl, and he had come to this very spot. The light of the faeries had dazzled him, and he had stood apart from the celebration, alone in the shadows, his lantern a small and mundane light when compared with the magical glow.

He sat down numbly in the same spot wherein he had sat down before, and quietly bemoaned his lot in life, for now there was a great deal more to moan about.

It was a strange thing, the feeling he had felt when he had gazed upon Pan and Wendy in this glade. Jealousy, malice, and disappointment were its familiar components, but that time, the sensation had been flavored with a curious feeling of bitter loss and emptiness that made his icy eyes sting and prickle at their corners in a most odd and unpleasant fashion. He did not fully understand it, and this frustrated him greatly.

What loss had he suffered at that moment in time, when the air was warm and still, and the faeries had danced so freely and joyously? His hand, but that was all. His conscience had been traded away a long time ago, and he hadn't missed it's nagging voice. But when he had sat there, dressed in his rich silk and velvet, Hook had felt a lack of something, a something he presently did not have, nor had he ever possessed.

A Wendy, perhaps?

His upper lip curled. Well, now he certainly had no Wendy. He also had no ship, no crew (save for Smee), and no power, but that did not make his eyes sting and prickle as they had then that night, and as they were doing now, he realized angrily.

Love was not a concept that he comprehended fully. It seemed, to Hook, to imply some nauseating form of gooey sentimentality, a sentimentality that in turn conjured up visions of laughing children, warm puppies and fuzzy kittens. All of which Hook despised.

So, why did he have the nagging feeling that love was what he lacked?

He was alone. He had always been alone, even when he had been surrounded by his crew, all of whom had been terrified of their fearsome leader. He was alone in his thoughts and emotions, cut off from the joys and simple pleasures that his enemy Pan reveled in so carelessly. James Hook was, and always had been, an exile from polite society, an outcast from what tenderness and compassion there was in life. And he knew that his own evil actions had made him into such a pariah.

And now, was he regretting those actions, those choices? The choices he had made of his own evil will?

His temper flared up at that implication. No, never! Captain James Hook did not **regret** his actions, however wicked and depraved those actions might be! He did not feel remorse! Or pity! Or compassion! 

Or love! He did not feel these things at all, not one bit of them!!

He slashed in his anger at a little twig, and easily severed it with the sharp blade of his hook. The action fueled his rage, and he decided that what made him so angry was the fact that he had lost. Lost, yet again! That wasn't right! It wasn't fair! By all rights, he should have won!

"I should've won!" Hook snarled, for the first time giving utterance to his boiling emotions. "I should've! **I should!!!**" he shouted out to wherever the cruel and fickle Fate was that cared to listen to his ranting.

Shouting was not enough. Barely even caring about where he was or who heard him, James Hook threw himself down on the ground and gave full vent to the whining, unhappy child that was his inner soul. He howled and clawed the hard, cold ground with his fingers and hooks, until his fingernails bled and his stump was sore. He kicked and dug at the earth with his toes until they, too, were sore and bruised.  It did not take long for his temper tantrum to wear out what strength he had left, and when it did, he lay curled up on the ground, his muscles aching. He hadn't indulged in such childish behavior for ages, and tired though it made him feel, in his heart he felt no different.

He lay on the ground, panting, and did not notice the pair of large, dark eyes that watched him stealthily from a frozen clump of bushes.

                                                                *~*~*~*

Princess Tigerlily gazed from her hiding place at the red-and-gold clad figure that lay slumped on the ground. He had just finished up with his inane howling and carrying on and now just lay there, shivering slightly, and muttering to himself. 

Silently she drew her bow and nocked an arrow. She was a swift and sure shot with the little weapon, and she could shoot this foppish buffoon as easily as she could down a lame bird.

But the childlike compassion that she could not outgrow stayed her hand from releasing the arrow into Hook's back. The compassion had stopped her from shooting lame birds in the first place. And now it stayed her hand from killing the man who had tried to kill her. He was, after all, fairly helpless at the moment. 

She snorted softly at the thought of her own foolish sentiments, and melted away into the frozen forest, her arrow quiver slung at her back.

                                                                  *~*~*~*

Hook got up swiftly from the ground as he heard footsteps approaching. He readied himself for a fight, but the intruder was only Smee, returning with a bundle of sticks in one hand and two large coconuts tucked in the crooks of both of his arms. 

"Beggin' yer pardon, sir, but these was the best I could find," he said humbly. Fear still glimmered in his eyes, but he set the coconuts down and began to fix a respectable fire for the two of them. Hook sat down again, arms crossed, his eyes glittering harshly in the light of Smee's small fire.

"Very well, Smee," Hook said. Smee looked up at his master in astonishment, for James Hook had never before said that Smee did anything well. He nodded at Hook, taking care to not look him in the eyes, and Hook grabbed a coconut and placed it near the fire, so that the coconut's frozen juices and meat might thaw.

Hook stared, his attention fixated upon the coconuts, but his cold pale eyes looked up at Smee as the older man asked, with the greatest of caution, "Beggin' yer pardon again, sir, but... how did ye escape the great crocodile, sir?"

Hook stared at the man until Smee gulped and looked away. When Hook spoke, though, his harsh tone held something that Smee had never heard in that voice before: a tone of wonderment.

"I do not fully know, Smee," Hook admitted. He stared at the fire, then picked up his coconut. "I... had in me some will to survive yet, even when I thought that I had surrendered all hope in this world. I...fought--" he slammed the points of his hooks into the skin of the coconut-- "and I survived." He raised the coconut to his lips and drank from it, then he lowered it and gazed at Smee, his icy eyes glittering wildly. Hook smiled. "I am beginning to believe that indeed, I cannot die. I am immortal, Smee."

Smee stared at Hook in awed terror.

"How can ye be... immortal, Capt'n? Beggin' yer pardon, again."

"Ah... that, Smee, is a secret." Hook waved his claws at him. "And I think I shall keep it."

Smee said no more on the subject, but instead he cut a hole in his own coconut with the point of a small dagger, and ate and drank. Then Smee curled up at a safe distance from both the fire and Captain Hook, and fell asleep.

James Hook did not sleep. Instead, he stared into the fire, lost in his own plans, thoughts, and dreams.

                                                               *~*~*~*~*~*

                          To Be Continued...


	4. Chapter Four: In Which The Origins Of Ja

The Hook Chronicles

Epilogue: In Which The Origins Of James Hook Are Revealed

                                                         *~*~*~*~*~*~*

Hook's eyes watched the dancing flames, and he thought of the past. 

He knew that he was immortal. He had survived so many things; the blood loss and fever that had resulted from the amputation of his hand, several battles, three crocodile attacks, and his own poison. His theory simply had to be correct.

He smiled. Truly, he was Wendy's greatest creation.

Hook's genesis had occurred a long time ago. How long  ago, he was not certain, but he knew that he had been born in the sea, and he had awoken to his existence on the sun-warmed shore of Neverland. The ocean had washed over him, and he had been naked.

James had rolled over, twisting in the warm, damp sand, his eyes squinting in the bright, hot sunlight. His long brown hair had fallen in soggy tangles about his face, and he clawed it out of his eyes with both hands, reveling in the tactile sensations of wet hair against his fingers and sunshine on his skin. He waited there for a moment, knowing only that his name was James.

_"James is a pirate,..."_

The voice was soft, young, and feminine, and he would not see the owner of this voice for many a season. It had informed him of his occupation, though, and he had smiled a smile that was more like a sneer. A pirate.

No birth is without pain, and James had then suddenly rolled over, crying out as pain bit into the flesh of his upper left shoulder. He had howled even louder as the sea-water, which had felt so pleasant only a moment ago, made the pain feel even worse. He dragged himself swiftly out of the ocean, wincing, then rolled into the dry, soft sand. The water could not reach him there.

He had dared to look at his shoulder: James the pirate was created to be brave, after all.  Blood and sand were caked together on the skin, and he brushed that off with a hand. 

There, tattooed into the skin of his shoulder, was a green and red symbol. Beneath it was the legend, _The Jolly Roger._

_"And the Jolly Roger is Captain James' ship," _the voice said again.

He had nodded at this, and had gotten to his feet, staggering like a baby learning to walk as the sand shifted under him. He had started to walk and had kept on walking until he noticed something half-buried in the sand up ahead. The something was black and silver, and he found himself desiring it very much.

_"Captain James likes fine clothing; he's a bit vain in that way..._" the voice offered, and James had reached out for the black and silver things, and had found to, his surprise and delight, that they were indeed fine clothes; trousers and waistcoat of black velvet and silk, and a brocaded coat. Leather boots would protect his feet, which were tender and had no calluses on them.

He had dressed himself, somehow knowing what to do without being told, and he had then reconsidered his occupation. What exactly did a pirate do?

Then he knew, and a particularly feral grin curled his thin lips. "_Captain James is the fiercest pirate that was ever born..." _the voice said, and James had heartily agreed with it.

James had found the Jolly Roger a few days later; after all, it did not do for a pirate to be separated from that which was rightfully his. He had swiftly assumed control of the vessel and had run it's crew with a iron fist ever since.

And then one day he had met Peter Pan, who had been living in Neverland for far longer than James had. Hook pulled his mind out of his reverie and looked at his hooks darkly.

For a long time, Hook had believed himself to have been created by the sea itself. The theory had made sense, after all, as he had had from the moment of his creation an affinity and love for the open ocean, and at night sometimes, before the loss of his right hand, he had gotten up from bed and walked the decks of the _Jolly Roger _alone, gazing up at the stars and the moon, admiring the light they gave, which sparkled off the ocean's waves so beautifully. Those times had been happy ones for Hook; even though he was by nature a brutal man, he was not without intelligence and refinement, unlike the rest of his crew. His men cared only for rum and bloodshed, and James Hook had looked down on them as the scum that they were.

But it was Wendy who created all of us, Hook thought to himself, and he prodded the ashes of the fire with a stick. He knew the true story of his origins now, and he was unsurprised by the fact that he had tried to kill his creator just a day ago. After all, in her imagination Wendy had created him as the most wicked of men, and he privately thought that this said something about her own character.

I did naught but return like for like when I forced her off the plank, he thought. Wendy had betrayed him; betrayed her most beautiful and efficient creation; she had refused the life of a pirate and had instead sided with Pan and his gang of brattish hooligans. And so Hook had betrayed her in return. He wondered idly if she had been surprised by that, and he thought that she had been. He sneered; she should not have been surprised, for her Captain Hook had simply been acting as his nature dictated.

Hook's metaphysical and philosophical ponderings had wearied him, and so he prodded Smee's shoulder with the tips of his hooks. The other man awoke with a start, and Hook told him to keep watch for the remainder of the evening. Smee sighed and rubbed his bleary eyes, but he did not dare to argue with his captain's command. Hook, in turn, curled up on his side and closed his eyes. He knew that Smee would in all likelyhood fall fast asleep again, but it did not really matter much to Hook. After all, he could not be killed.__

_                                                      *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*_

Hook awoke to the warmth of the sunshine and the chirps of birds. Even before he opened his eyes, he scowled. Warmth and life meant only one thing: Pan was back.

He opened his eyes, blinking and squinting, and clawed the now tender and moist earth with his hooks. Pan was no Native of Neverland, as Hook was, but somehow the entire realm responded to the Eternal Youth, as though the brat was the beating heart of Neverland itself. At this thought, Hook's scowl became twisted with rank jealousy.

"Smee, get up!" he snarled viciously. "We're leaving."

Smee leapt to his feet, looking somewhat desperate. "Where to, Capt'n?"

Hook shook his curved claws under Smee's chin, and the former bosun gulped and stood stock-still. "Do stop calling me that, Smee. I have no ship, ergo, I am no longer a captain." He turned away, his pale blue eyes narrowing to slits as he looked to the west, to the rising sun. "And I do not intend to sail the seas again, for a long, long while." He turned back to Smee. "We will head east, into the desert, and I shall make a name for myself there."

                                                            *~*~*~*~*~*~*~* 

                                                                Finis

                                                             *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*


End file.
